either.”
“I was in the right place at the wrong time,” I said. “And I was just trying to save my own sorry butt. I got hurt badly enough to spend the rest of my time in the Army in a clerical brigade.”
I would have liked to tell Buddy the truth. In a way I felt he deserved to hear it. But it wasn’t my truth to share.
* * *
After two years as a Ranger, I entered Special Forces selection. It was physically easier than Ranger School, but there was a new emphasis on individual problem solving. Move a jeep missing all four wheels 100 yards with four men and no tools – that kind of thing. It was fantastic. The thrill of picking apart a puzzle set to trip you up was another kind of adrenaline rush, one that lasted longer. I also started learning languages. Special Forces operators are often used as “force multipliers” in the modern army. They train local troops to fight alone or alongside U.S. military units. Learning local languages is vital for success in this type of mission. Selection and training took six months. Then suddenly, I found myself on a cargo plane with six other men, soaring through the mountains of Afghanistan on a clandestine mission. My first combat HALO jump felt like being ripped through a brick wall by a bear. Jumping in the Hindu-Kush Mountain Range is nothing like grazing the soft belly of a swampy rice paddy in North Carolina.
For nearly two years, I alternated between training and missions. That’s the thing most people never hear about the Army. They invest more in training every soldier than any private business would ever dream of. On my first trip into the North West Frontier of Pakistan, I could barely spit out two phrases of Urdu. Two years later I could get by in four local languages and several dialects. For the first time since I’d left the Conestoga Cougars, I felt fully part of a team. The standard issue scraggly beard and weather-beaten tan I acquired for infiltration missions didn’t separate me from the Army – it strengthened the bond.
Then one morning, I got a call from Alpha. It was the first I’d heard from the man since we’d met in person. If my career hadn’t followed the exact path he’d outlined four years earlier, I would have long since forgotten him. “Are you watching the news?” Alpha asked. I wasn’t. I’d just come off of a 72-hour field exercise. I still had a 60-pound ruck on my back.
“No, sir,” I replied, instantly alert.
“Bad things are happening. It’s time for you to suit up. By February, you’ll be heading to Fort Bragg to start Delta Selection. In the meantime you’re going to have your hands full. Good luck,” Alpha said and clicked off. I stood there dumbly for a moment, wondering how he’d got my cell number. It was September 11, 2001.
I dropped my ruck on my bunk and raced to the NCOs’ lounge. I was by then a newly minted Staff Sergeant with an E-6 pay grade. The room was packed but dead silent as the Rangers and Special Forces operators stared mutely at a television set. A building was burning on the flat screen. A Master Sergeant whispered, “Terrorists just hit the World Trade Center – both buildings.” As I watched in disbelief, a plume of smoke rose and the tower collapsed in a cloud of dust.
The action Buddy Peterson asked me about took place in January of 2002, four months after the terrorist attacks. It was a raid on an Al Qaeda stronghold near Kandahar.
I was leading a squad of ten Special Forces operators from my A-Team from the front. Two squads had been designated to take down a target that looked like a single building from aerial surveillance photos. When we arrived there in the dead of night we found not one, but three separate buildings surrounding a courtyard full of gleaming new Toyota pickups filled with sleeping Taliban Mujahidin fighters wearing long dishdash cotton shirts. My squad was tasked with clearing the two structures to the right of the courtyard. The attack needed to be timed
“I was in the right place at the wrong time,” I said. “And I was just trying to save my own sorry butt. I got hurt badly enough to spend the rest of my time in the Army in a clerical brigade.”
I would have liked to tell Buddy the truth. In a way I felt he deserved to hear it. But it wasn’t my truth to share.
* * *
After two years as a Ranger, I entered Special Forces selection. It was physically easier than Ranger School, but there was a new emphasis on individual problem solving. Move a jeep missing all four wheels 100 yards with four men and no tools – that kind of thing. It was fantastic. The thrill of picking apart a puzzle set to trip you up was another kind of adrenaline rush, one that lasted longer. I also started learning languages. Special Forces operators are often used as “force multipliers” in the modern army. They train local troops to fight alone or alongside U.S. military units. Learning local languages is vital for success in this type of mission. Selection and training took six months. Then suddenly, I found myself on a cargo plane with six other men, soaring through the mountains of Afghanistan on a clandestine mission. My first combat HALO jump felt like being ripped through a brick wall by a bear. Jumping in the Hindu-Kush Mountain Range is nothing like grazing the soft belly of a swampy rice paddy in North Carolina.
For nearly two years, I alternated between training and missions. That’s the thing most people never hear about the Army. They invest more in training every soldier than any private business would ever dream of. On my first trip into the North West Frontier of Pakistan, I could barely spit out two phrases of Urdu. Two years later I could get by in four local languages and several dialects. For the first time since I’d left the Conestoga Cougars, I felt fully part of a team. The standard issue scraggly beard and weather-beaten tan I acquired for infiltration missions didn’t separate me from the Army – it strengthened the bond.
Then one morning, I got a call from Alpha. It was the first I’d heard from the man since we’d met in person. If my career hadn’t followed the exact path he’d outlined four years earlier, I would have long since forgotten him. “Are you watching the news?” Alpha asked. I wasn’t. I’d just come off of a 72-hour field exercise. I still had a 60-pound ruck on my back.
“No, sir,” I replied, instantly alert.
“Bad things are happening. It’s time for you to suit up. By February, you’ll be heading to Fort Bragg to start Delta Selection. In the meantime you’re going to have your hands full. Good luck,” Alpha said and clicked off. I stood there dumbly for a moment, wondering how he’d got my cell number. It was September 11, 2001.
I dropped my ruck on my bunk and raced to the NCOs’ lounge. I was by then a newly minted Staff Sergeant with an E-6 pay grade. The room was packed but dead silent as the Rangers and Special Forces operators stared mutely at a television set. A building was burning on the flat screen. A Master Sergeant whispered, “Terrorists just hit the World Trade Center – both buildings.” As I watched in disbelief, a plume of smoke rose and the tower collapsed in a cloud of dust.
The action Buddy Peterson asked me about took place in January of 2002, four months after the terrorist attacks. It was a raid on an Al Qaeda stronghold near Kandahar.
I was leading a squad of ten Special Forces operators from my A-Team from the front. Two squads had been designated to take down a target that looked like a single building from aerial surveillance photos. When we arrived there in the dead of night we found not one, but three separate buildings surrounding a courtyard full of gleaming new Toyota pickups filled with sleeping Taliban Mujahidin fighters wearing long dishdash cotton shirts. My squad was tasked with clearing the two structures to the right of the courtyard. The attack needed to be timed
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